Microsoft Launches AI-Powered Bing Generative Search in the U.S.

Microsoft is stepping up its search game by launching Bing Generative Search, its answer to Google’s AI-powered search features. After a pilot in July, this new search experience is now being rolled out to all U.S. users, though it’s still under development. Users can easily access Bing Generative Search by simply searching for "Bing Generative Search" on Bing, and Microsoft has also added a new option to trigger this feature for certain “informational queries.”

AI-Driven Summaries for Enhanced Search Results

Bing Generative Search utilizes a combination of AI models to aggregate information from across the web, providing users with concise summaries in response to their search queries. For example, when searching for “What’s a spaghetti western?”, Bing Generative Search generates a summary detailing the genre’s history and key examples, along with links to relevant sources.

Much like Google’s AI Overviews feature, Bing Generative Search also allows users to dismiss AI-generated summaries in favor of traditional search results.

Microsoft's Approach to Fulfilling Search Intentions

Microsoft asserts that Bing Generative Search goes beyond simple fact-finding, emphasizing its ability to understand search queries, analyze millions of sources, and generate dynamic results.

“Bing Generative Search goes beyond simply finding an answer,” Microsoft stated in a blog post. “Instead, it understands the search query, reviews millions of sources of information, dynamically matches content, and generates search results on the fly.”

This tool evolves the AI-generated chat answers that Microsoft introduced on Bing in February 2023, which aim to fulfill user queries more reliably. However, concerns about the accuracy of AI-generated results persist.

Challenges with AI-Generated Search Results

While AI-generated search experiences like Bing’s and Google’s offer convenience, they have been known to produce problematic results. Google’s AI Overviews once suggested putting glue on a pizza, while other AI tools like Arc Search and Genspark have offered misleading or even dangerous suggestions, such as regrowing cut-off toes or recommending weapons.

Additionally, AI-generated summaries pose a potential threat to publisher traffic. A study found that Google’s AI Overviews could reduce traffic to websites by about 25%, as it deprioritizes links to original articles. Microsoft, however, claims that Bing Generative Search maintains the number of clicks to websites, though no new data was provided to support this claim.

Bing's Place in the Search Market

Despite its innovations, any changes to Bing’s search experience are less likely to shake the market compared to Google, which commands an overwhelming 81.95% share of the global search market as of September 2024. In contrast, Bing holds a more modest 10.51% share, according to Statista. Still, with Bing Generative Search, Microsoft is paving the way for a more interactive and AI-driven search experience, offering users not only faster access to information but also a glimpse into the future of how we navigate the web.